Encyclical | AirMaria.com https://dev.airmaria.com Breathe Freely Fri, 02 Dec 2022 15:57:25 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://airmaria.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/28143228/amicon-r-100x100.png Encyclical | AirMaria.com https://dev.airmaria.com 32 32 Jul 25 – Homily – Fr Ignatius Mary: Humanae Vitae https://dev.airmaria.com/2008/07/25/jul-25-homily-fr-ignatius-mary-humanae-vitae/ https://dev.airmaria.com/2008/07/25/jul-25-homily-fr-ignatius-mary-humanae-vitae/#comments Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:14:22 +0000 http://www.airmaria.com/?p=1734 Homily #080725 ( 14min) Play – Today we celebrate the Feast of St. James the Apostle, and the 40th anniversary of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae. In today’s homily Father Ignatius speaks about our...

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Homily #080725 ( 14min) Play – Today we celebrate the Feast of St. James the Apostle, and the 40th anniversary of the Encyclical Humanae Vitae. In today’s homily Father Ignatius speaks about our disordered desire for independence from authority, and the nature of the Married State in relation to the Church’s teaching against contraception.
Ave Maria! Mass readings
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Mysterium Fidei https://dev.airmaria.com/2009/06/13/mysterium-fidei/ Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:00:26 +0000 http://airmaria.com/?p=5026 Ave Maria Meditations + The Mystery of Faith: TRANSUBSTANTIATION + The words of Our Lord cannot be watered down: the ­bread which I shall give is my flesh for the life of the...

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Ave Maria Meditations

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The Mystery of Faith: TRANSUBSTANTIATION

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The words of Our Lord cannot be watered down: the ­bread which I

shall give is my flesh for the life of the world.

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This is the mystery of Faith, we proclaim immediately after the

Consecration at Mass. It has been and is the touchstone of the Catholic

faith. By transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine are no

longer common bread and common drink, but rather the sign of

something sacred and the sign of spiritual food. But they take on a

new expressive­ness and a new purpose for the very reason that they

contain a new reality: which we are right to call ‘ontological’. For

beneath these appearances there is no longer what was there before

but something quitedifferent, since on the conver­sion of the bread and

wine’s substance, or nature, into the Body and Blood of Christ,

nothing is left of the bread and wine but the appearances alone.

Beneath these appearances Christ is present whole and entire, bodily

present too, in his physical reality although not in the manner in

which bodies are present in a place.

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We look at Jesus present in the Tabernacle, perhaps just a few yards

away, and we tell him that we know, through faith, that he is present.


In Holy Communion Christ himself, perfect God and perfect man,

gives himself to us; he is mysteriously hidden, but wishes to

communicate divine life to us. When we receive him in this sacrament,

his Divinity acts on our soul by means of his glorious Humanity, with a

far greater intensity than when he was here on earth. None of the

people who were cured – Bartimaeus or the paralyzed man of

Capharnaum or the lepers -were as close to Christ as we are every time

we go to Holy Communion.

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The effects produced by that Living Bread, Jesus, in our soul

are immeasurable and of an infinite richness. The Church expresses it

clearly in the following words: All the effect which material food and

drink have with regan1 to the life of the body, sustaining, res­toring and

delighting it, is carried out by this sacrament with regan1 to the

spiritual life.

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Hidden under the sacramental species, Jesus waits for us. He has

remained there so that we can receive him and be strengthened in his

love. We must examine our faith today; let us ask ourselves what our

love is like, how do we prepare ourselves for Communion, when so

many people neglect Our Lord entirely. We must say with Peter: we

have known and believed that you are the Christ. You are our

Redeemer, our raison d’etre.

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The effects of Communion on the soul: it sus­tains, restores,

delights. Communion sustains the life of the soul in away similar to that in

which food sustains the body. The reception of the Blessed Eucharist

keeps Catholics in God’s grace, since the soul recovers its energies from

the continual wear and tear it suffers through the wounds of original

sin and of personal sins. It maintains the life of God in the soul, freeing

it from lukewarmness; and it helps us to avoid mortal sin and

struggle effectively against venial sins. The Blessed Eucharist increases

supernatural life also: it makes it grow and develop. And while it fills

the soul spiritually, it gives it an increasing desire for eternal goods.

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Finally, the grace we receive in each Communion delights the person

who receives with good dispositions. Nothing can be compared to the

joy of the Holy Eucharist, to the friendship and nearness of Jesus,

present within us. Jesus Christ, during his life on earth, never passed by

any­where without pouring out his abundant blessings, from which we

can deduce how great and precious must be the gifts which those who

have the happiness of receiving Him in Holy Communion must share;

or rather, that all the hap­piness we can have in this life consists in

receiving Our Lord in Holy Communion.

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Communion is the remedy for our daily needs, the medicine of

immortality, the antidote against death, and food by which to live

forever in Jesus Christ. It grants to the soul the peace and joy of Christ

which is truly a foretaste of eter­nal happiness. Among all the practices of piety there is none whose sanctifying effectiveness can be compared to the worthy reception of this sacrament. In it, not only do we receive grace, but the Source and Fountainhead from which all

grace flows.

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All the sacraments are ordained towards the Blessed Eucharist: it is the pivotal sacrament. Hidden under the accidents of bread, Jesus wants us to come and receive him frequently. The banquet, he tells us, is ready. Many indeed are those who are absent, and Jesus waits for us to tell all those others that he is also waiting for them in the Tabernacle.

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We must ask Our Lady to help us go to Communion every day with better dispositions.

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Fr. Francis Fernandez:  In Conversation with Christ
Drawing of the Blessed Sacrament in the Monstrance courtesy of Archival Art

The Mystery of Faith, that is, the ineffable gift of the Eucharist that the Catholic Church received from Christ, her Spouse, as a pledge of His immense love, is something that she has always devoutly guarded as her most precious treasure, and during the Second Vatican Council she professed her faith and veneration in a new and solemn declaration.

In dealing with the restoration of the sacred liturgy, the Fathers of the Council were led by their pastoral concern for the whole Church to regard it as a matter of highest importance to urge the faithful to participate actively, with undivided faith and the utmost devotion, in the celebration of this Most Holy Mystery, to offer it to God along with the priest as a sacrifice for their own salvation and that of the whole world, and to use it as spiritual nourishment.

For if the sacred liturgy holds first place in the life of the Church, then the Eucharistic Mystery stands at the heart and center of the liturgy, since it is the font of life that cleanses us and strengthens us to live not for ourselves but for God and to be united to each other by the closest ties of love.

Pope Paul VI: Encyclical Mysterium Fidei



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New Encyclical Out July 7 https://dev.airmaria.com/2009/07/02/new-encyclical-out-july-7/ Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:05:11 +0000 http://airmaria.com/?p=5589 “Caritas in Veritate” to Cover Social Themes VATICAN CITY, JULY 1, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI’s new encyclical, titled “Caritas in Veritate,” will be released Tuesday, the Vatican announced. The Vatican press office confirmed...

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“Caritas in Veritate” to Cover Social Themes
VATICAN CITY, JULY 1, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI’s new encyclical, titled “Caritas in Veritate,” will be released Tuesday, the Vatican announced.

The Vatican press office confirmed today that the Pope’s first social encyclical, which is expected to offer an analysis of the current economic crisis, will be presented at a press conference in the late morning July 7. The text will then be released to the public at midday, local time.  More…

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News – New Encyclical “Caritas in Veritate” Published https://dev.airmaria.com/2009/07/07/news-new-encyclical-caritas-in-veritate-published/ Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:08:04 +0000 http://airmaria.com/?p=5689 Ave Maria! The new encyclical Caritas in Veritate by Pope Benedict XVI has just been published. It is fairly long. I’m looking forward to reading it.

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Benedict XVI SignsAve Maria!

The new encyclical Caritas in Veritate by Pope Benedict XVI has just been published. It is fairly long. I’m looking forward to reading it.

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News – Pope Benedict on His New Encyclical Caritas in Veritate https://dev.airmaria.com/2009/07/09/news-pope-benedict-on-his-new-encyclical-caritas-in-veritate/ https://dev.airmaria.com/2009/07/09/news-pope-benedict-on-his-new-encyclical-caritas-in-veritate/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:24:01 +0000 http://airmaria.com/?p=5770

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Pope St. Pius X addressed the heresies of Modernism https://dev.airmaria.com/2009/08/20/pope-st-pius-x-addressed-the-heresies-of-modernism-2/ Thu, 20 Aug 2009 22:00:26 +0000 http://airmaria.com/?p=6097 Ave Maria Meditations Pope St. Pius X Feast day is August 21st Pope St. Pius X was born as Giuseppe Sarto to a poor family in 1835. He was ordained to the holy priesthood...

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Ave Maria Meditations

PPX

Pope St. Pius X

Feast day is August 21st

Pope St. Pius X was born as Giuseppe Sarto to a poor family in 1835. He was ordained to the holy priesthood in 1858 was elected Pope in 1903. One biography says this on his pontificate: He lowered the age of First Communion to the age of 7 and encouraged frequent, even daily Communion. He reformed the liturgy, promoted clear and simple homilies, and brought Gregorian chant back to services. He revised the Breviary, and the teaching of the Catechism. He fought Modernism, which he denounced as “the summation of all heresies”. He reorganized the Roman curia and initiated the codification of canon law. He promoted the reading of Sacred Scripture and the foreign missions. His will read: “I was born poor; I lived poor; I wish to die poor.” He died in August of 1914.  He is known as the Pope of the Blessed Sacrament and also as the Pope who suppressed modernism and that suppression lasted for decades until  it roared again to life in the turbulent times following the second Vatican Council.

His great encyclical addressing and condemning modernism can be found at

http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10pasce.htm

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excerpts from

PASCENDI DOMINICI GREGIS ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE MODERNISTS ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS X, SEPTEMBER 8, 1907

VENERABLE BRETHREN, HEALTH AND THE APOSTOLIC BLESSING:

1. One of the primary obligations assigned by Christ to the office divinely committed to Us of feeding the Lord’s flock is that of guarding with the greatest vigilance the deposit of the faith delivered to the saints, rejecting the profane novelties of words and the gainsaying of knowledge falsely so called. There has never been a time when this watchfulness of the supreme pastor was not necessary to the Catholic body, for owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacking men speaking perverse things, vain talkers and seducers,erring and driving into error.

It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ. Wherefore We may no longer keep silence, lest We should seem to fail in Our most sacred duty, and lest the kindness that, in the hope of wiser counsels, We have hitherto shown them, should be set down to lack of diligence in the discharge of Our office.

2. That We should act without delay in this matter is made imperative especially by the fact that the partisans of error are to be sought not only among the Church’s open enemies; but, what is to be most dreaded and deplored, in her very bosom, and are the more mischievous the less they keep in the open. We allude, Venerable Brethren, to many who belong to the Catholic laity, and, what is much more sad, to the ranks of the priesthood itself, who, animated by a false zeal for the Church, lacking the solid safeguards of philosophy and theology, nay more, thoroughly imbued with the poisonous doctrines taught by the enemies of the Church, and lost to all sense of modesty, put themselves forward as reformers of the Church; and, forming more boldly into line of attack, assail all that is most sacred in the work of Christ, not sparing even the Person of the Divine Redeemer, whom, with sacrilegious audacity, they degrade to the condition of a simple and ordinary man.

3….Nor indeed would he be wrong in regarding them as the most pernicious of all the adversaries of the Church. For, as We have said, they put into operation their designs for her undoing, not from without but from within. Hence, the danger is present almost in the very veins and heart of the Church, whose injury is the more certain from the very fact that their knowledge of her is more intimate.

Moreover, they lay the ax not to the branches and shoots, but to the very root, that is, to the faith and its deepest fibers. And once having struck at this root of immortality, they proceed to diffuse poison through the whole tree, so that there is no part of Catholic truth which they leave untouched, none that they do not strive to corrupt. Further, none is more skillful, none more astute than they, in the employment of a thousand noxious devices; for they play the double part of rationalist and Catholic, and this so craftily that they easily lead the unwary into error; and as audacity is their chief characteristic,

10….In hearing these things we shudder indeed at so great an audacity of assertion and so great a sacrilege. And yet, Venerable Brethren, these are not merely the foolish babblings of unbelievers. There are Catholics, yea, and priests too, who say these things openly; and they boast that they are going to reform the Church by these ravings!

14….Destruction of one, true religion: these errors, combined with those which we have already mentioned, open wide the way to Atheism. Here it is well to note at once that, given this doctrine of experience united with that of symbolism, every religion, even that of paganism, must be held to be true….But what is most amazing is that there are Catholics and priests, who, We would fain believe, and yet act as if they fully approved of them. For they lavish such praise and bestow such public honor on the teachers of these errors as to convey the belief that their admiration is not meant merely for the persons, who are perhaps not devoid of a certain merit, but rather for the sake of the errors which these persons openly profess and which they do all in their power to propagate.

21….But for the Modernists, sacraments are bare symbols or signs, though not devoid of a certain efficacy — an efficacy, they tell us, like that of certain phrases vulgarly described as having caught the popular ear, inasmuch as they have the power of putting certain leading ideas into circulation, and of making a marked impression upon the mind. What the phrases are to the ideas, that the sacraments are to the religious sense, that and nothing more.

The Modernists would express their mind more clearly were they to affirm that the sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith but this is condemned by the Council of Trent: If anyone says that these sacraments are instituted solely to foster the faith, let him be anathema.

22….For if we take the Bible, according to the standards of agnosticism, namely, as a human work, made by men for men, albeit the theologian is allowed to proclaim that it is divine by immanence, what room is there left in it for inspiration? The Modernists assert a general inspiration of the Sacred Books, but they admit no inspiration in the Catholic sense.

27….The progressive force, on the contrary, which responds to the inner needs, lies in the individual consciences and works in them — especially in such of them as are in more close and intimate contact with life. Already we observe, Venerable Brethren, the introduction of that most pernicious doctrine which would make of the laity the factor of progress in the Church…

With all this in mind, one understands how it is that the Modernists express astonishment when they are reprimanded or punished. What is imputed to them as a fault they regard as a sacred duty. They understand the needs of consciences better than anyone else, since they come into closer touch with them than does the ecclesiastical authority. Nay, they embody them, so to speak, in themselves. Hence, for them to speak and to write publicly is a bounden duty. Let authority rebuke them if it pleases — they have their own conscience on their side and an intimate experience which tells them with certainty that what they deserve is not blame but praise.

34….The Modernists have no hesitation in affirming generally that these books, and especially the Pentateuch and the first three Gospels, have been gradually formed from a primitive brief narration, by additions, by interpolations of theological or allegorical interpretations, or parts introduced only for the purpose of joining different passages together. This means, to put it briefly and clearly, that in the Sacred Books we must admit a vital evolution, springing from and corresponding with the evolution of faith…To hear them descant of their works on the Sacred Books, in which they have been able to discover so much that is defective, one would imagine that before them nobody ever even turned over the pages of Scripture.

38….They insist that both outwardly and inwardly it (the Church) must be brought into harmony with the modern conscience which now wholly tends towards democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity and authority which is too much concentrated should be decentralized…As for history, it must be written and taught only according to their methods and modern principles. Dogmas and their evolution, they affirm, are to be harmonized with science and history.

In the Catechism no dogmas are to be inserted except those that have been reformed and are within the capacity of the people. Regarding worship, they say, the number of external devotions is to he reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent their further increase…With regard to morals, they adopt the principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are more important than the passive, and are to be more encouraged in practice…and there are some who, gladly listening to the teaching of their Protestant masters, would desire the suppression of the celibacy of the clergy. What is there left in the Church which is not to be reformed by them and according to their principles?

MODERNISM: SYNTHESIS OF ALL HERESIES

39….Undoubtedly, were anyone to attempt the task of collecting together all the errors that have been broached against the faith and to concentrate into one the sap and substance of them all, he could not succeed in doing so better than the Modernists have done. Nay, they have gone farther than this, for, as We have already intimated, their system means the destruction not of the Catholic religion alone, but of all religion.

Hence the rationalists are not wanting in their applause, and the most frank and sincere among them congratulate themselves on having found in the Modernists the most valuable of all allies….works of ascetical theology — works for which the Modernists have but little esteem…For if all the intellectual elements, as they call them, of religion are nothing more than mere symbols of God, will not the very name of God or of divine personality be also a symbol, and if this be admitted, the personality of God will become a matter of doubt and the gate will be opened to pantheism? …Modernism leads to atheism and to the annihilation of all religion. The error of Protestantism made the first step on this path; that of Modernism makes the second; atheism makes the next.

PRIDE SITS IN THE MODERNIST HOUSE

40….But it is pride which exercises an incomparably greater sway over the soul to blind it and lead it into error, and pride sits in Modernism as in its own house, finding sustenance everywhere in its doctrines and lurking in its every aspect. It is pride which fills Modernists with that self-assurance by which they consider themselves and pose as the rule for all. It is pride which puffs them up with that vainglory which allows them to regard themselves as the sole possessors of knowledge, and makes them say, elated and inflated with presumption, “We are not as the rest of men,” and which, lest they should seem as other men, leads them to embrace and to devise novelties even of the most absurd kind.

It is pride which rouses in them the spirit of disobedience and causes them to demand a compromise between authority and liberty. It is owing to their pride that they seek to be the reformers of others while they forget to reform themselves, and that they are found to be utterly wanting in respect for authority, even for the supreme authority. Truly there is no road which leads so directly and so quickly to Modernism as pride. When a Catholic layman or a priest forgets the precept of the Christian life which obliges us to renounce ourselves if we would follow Christ and neglects to tear pride from his heart, then it is he who most of all is a fully ripe subject for the errors of Modernism.

42….The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as they do upon tradition… Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of its adversaries…the Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the Church. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to charge them with ignorance or obstinacy.

43….They seize upon professorships in the seminaries and universities, and gradually make of them chairs of pestilence. In sermons from the pulpit they disseminate their doctrines, although possibly in utterances which are veiled…They are to be found among the laity, and in the ranks of the clergy, and they are not wanting even in the last place where one might expect to meet them, in religious communities If they treat of biblical questions, it is upon Modernist principles…they destroy as far as they can the pious traditions of the people…they have persuaded themselves that in all this they are really serving God and the Church. In reality they only offend both…

50. It is also the duty of the Bishops to prevent writings of Modernists, or whatever savors of Modernism or promotes it, from being read when they have been published, and to hinder their publication when they have not. No books or papers or periodicals whatever of this kind are to be permitted to seminarists or university students. The injury to them would be not less than that which is caused by immoral reading — nay, it would be greater, for such writings poison Christian life at its very fount.

57….Meanwhile, Venerable Brethren, fully confident in your zeal and energy, We beseech for you with Our whole heart the abundance of heavenly light, so that in the midst of this great danger to souls from the insidious invasions of error upon every hand, you may see clearly what ought to be done, and labor to do it with all your strength and courage. May Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, be with you in His power; and may the Immaculate Virgin, the destroyer of all heresies, be with you by her prayers and aid.

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In this Year of the Priest: The Necessity of Eucharistic Spirituality https://dev.airmaria.com/2009/09/01/in-this-year-of-the-priest-the-necessity-of-eucharistic-spirituality/ Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:00:09 +0000 http://airmaria.com/?p=6541 Ave Maria Meditations excerpts from ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA: On the Eucharist in its relationship to the Church Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II, April 2003 The Church draws her life from the...

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Ave Maria Meditations

excerpts from ECCLESIA DE EUCHARISTIA:

On the Eucharist in its relationship to the Church

Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul II, April 2003

The Church draws her life from the Eucharist. This truth does not simply express a daily experience of faith, but recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church. In a variety of ways she joyfully experiences the constant fulfillment of the promise: “Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:20), but in the Holy Eucharist, through the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of the Lord, she rejoices in this presence with unique intensity…The Second Vatican Council rightly proclaimed that the Eucharistic sacrifice is “the source and summit of the Christian life.  For the most holy Eucharist contains the Church’s entire spiritual wealth: Christ himself, our Passover and living Bread. Through his own flesh, now made living and life-giving by the Holy Spirit, he offers life to men”. Consequently the gaze of the church is constantly turned to her Lord, present in the Sacrament of the Altar, in which she discovers the full manifestation of his boundless love.

And so began the introduction to this great encyclical and from the Conclusion we read the following thoughts:

Several years ago I celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of my priesthood. Today…my heart is filled with gratitude. For over a half century, every day…my eyes have gazed in recollection upon the host and the chalice, where time and space in some way “merge” and the drama of Golgotha is re-presented in a living way…Each day my faith has been able to recognize in the consecrated bread and wine the divine Wayfarer who joined the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and opened their eyes to the light and their hearts to new hope. (Lk 24:13-35).

Allow me, dear brothers and sisters, to share with deep emotion, as a means of accompanying and strengthening your faith, my own testimony of faith in the Most Holy Eucharist…Here is the Church’s treasure, the heart of the world, the pledge of the fulfillment for which each man and woman, even unconsciously, yearns.. Here our senses fail us…yet faith alone, rooted in the word of Christ handed down to us by the Apostles, is sufficient for us. Allow me, like Peter at the end of the Eucharistic discourse in John’s Gospel, to say once more to Christ, in the name of the whole Church and in the name of each of you: “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:68).

At the dawn of this third millennium, we, the children of the Church, are called to undertake with renewed enthusiasm the journey of Christian living… it is not an inventing a ‘new program’. The program already exists: it is the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition; it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its centre in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated, so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity… the implementation of this program of a renewed impetus in Christian living passes through the Eucharist.

Every commitment to holiness, every activity aimed at carrying out the Church’s mission, every work of pastoral planning, must draw the strength it needs from the Eucharistic mystery and in turn be directed to that mystery as its culmination. In the Eucharist we have Jesus, we have his redemptive sacrifice, we have his resurrection, we have the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have adoration, obedience and love of the Father. Were we to disregard the Eucharist, how could we overcome our own deficiency?

By giving the Eucharist the prominence it deserves, and by being careful not to diminish any of its dimensions or demands, we show that we are truly conscious of the greatness of this gift…In the humble signs of bread and wine, changed into his body and blood, Christ walks beside us as our strength and our food for the journey, and he enables us to become, for everyone, witnesses of hope. If, in the presence of this mystery, reason experiences its limits, the heart, enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit, clearly sees the response that is demanded, and bows low in adoration and unbounded love.

Other thoughts on the centrality of the Eucharist in our spiritual life drawn from the encyclical include the following:

The Eucharist, as Christ’s saving presence in the community of the faithful and its spiritual food, is the most precious possession which the Church can have in her journey through history.

The worship of the Eucharist outside of the Mass is of inestimable value for the life of the Church. This worship is strictly linked to the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice…It is pleasant to spend time with him, to lie close to his breast like the Beloved Disciple (cf. Jn 13:25) and to feel the infinite love present in his heart.

If in our time Christians must be distinguished above all by the “art of prayer”, how can we not feel a renewed need to spend time in spiritual converse, in silent adoration, in heartfelt love before Christ present in the Most Holy Sacrament? How often, dear brother and sisters, have I experienced this, and drawn from it strength, consolation and support! Of all devotions, that of adoring Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is the greatest after the sacraments, the one dearest to God and the one most helpful to us.

Communion…presupposes the life of grace, by which we become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4), and the practice of the virtues of faith, hope and love. Only in this way do we have true communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nor is faith sufficient; (There is)a specific moral duty incumbent upon Christians who wish to participate fully in the Eucharist by receiving the body and blood of Christ. The Apostle Paul appeals to this duty when he warns: “Let a man examine himself, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

Along these same lines, the Catechism of the Catholic Church rightly stipulates that “anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion”. I therefore desire to reaffirm that in the Church there remains in force, now and in the future. The two sacraments of the Eucharist and Penance are very closely connected. Because the Eucharist makes present the redeeming sacrifice of the Cross, perpetuating it sacramentally, it naturally gives rise to a continuous need for conversion, for a personal response… The judgment of one’s state of grace obviously belongs only to the person involved, since it is a question of examining one’s conscience.

If we wish to rediscover in all its richness the profound relationship between the Church and the Eucharist, we cannot neglect Mary, Mother and model of the Church…the Blessed Virgin Mary as our teacher in contemplating Christ’s face…Mary can guide us towards this most holy sacrament, because she herself has a profound relationship with it.

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Aug 21 – Homily – Fr Joachim: Pius X for the Church https://dev.airmaria.com/2014/08/21/aug-21-homily-fr-joachim-pius-x-for-the-church/ Thu, 21 Aug 2014 11:24:11 +0000 http://airmaria.com/2014/08/21/aug-21-homily-fr-joachim-pius-x-for-the-church/ Homily #140821b ( 06min) Play – Fr. Joachim on the life and times of Pope St. Pius X and how he fought the heresy of Modernism which was called the synthesis of every previous...

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Homily #140821b ( 06min) Play – Fr. Joachim on the life and times of Pope St. Pius X and how he fought the heresy of Modernism which was called the synthesis of every previous heresy. His success ushered in an amazing period of strength and unity for the Church when the world was going through much conflict.
Ave Maria!
Mass: St. Pius X – Mem – Form: OF
Readings: Thursday in the 20th Week in Ordinary Time
1st: eze 36:23-28
Resp: psa 51:12-13, 14-15, 18-19
Gsp: mat 22:1-14

Audio (MP3)

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May 01 – Homily – Fr Matthias: An Ecology of Man https://dev.airmaria.com/2015/05/01/may-01-homily-fr-matthias-an-ecology-of-man/ Fri, 01 May 2015 22:15:58 +0000 http://airmaria.com/2015/05/01/may-01-homily-fr-matthias-an-ecology-of-man/ Homily #150501n ( 09min) Play – Father Matthias comments on the purpose of the created world, and why we should take care of it. As Pope Benedict XVI said, we need an “Ecology...

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Homily #150501n ( 09min) Play – Father Matthias comments on the purpose of the created world, and why we should take care of it. As Pope Benedict XVI said, we need an “Ecology of Man,” and understanding the purpose of human activity will help us to better understand the whole purpose of life: To become Saints! The comments from Pope Benedict may be found here: http://www.catholic.org/news/international/europe/story.php?id=42957
Ave Maria!
Mass: St. Joseph the Worker – Feast – Form: OF
Readings: Friday 4th Week of Easter
1st: act 13:26-33
Resp: psa 2:6-7, 8-9, 10-11
Gsp: joh 14:1-6

Audio (MP3)

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An Empty and Seductive Philosophy – Sep 07 – Homily – Fr Terrance https://dev.airmaria.com/2021/09/07/an-empty-and-seductive-philosophy-sep-07-homily-fr-terrance/ Tue, 07 Sep 2021 11:05:42 +0000 http://dev.airmaria.com/2021/09/07/an-empty-and-seductive-philosophy-sep-07-homily-fr-terrance/     Fr Terrance gives the homily at Bloomington, IN on Sep 07, 2021, on how atheism is an empty and selective philosophy, highlighting the contradiction of the new chaplain of Harvard being...

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Fr Terrance gives the homily at Bloomington, IN on Sep 07, 2021, on how atheism is an empty and selective philosophy, highlighting the contradiction of the new chaplain of Harvard being an atheist. He goes onto the logical contradiction of atheism as well its roots where Pope Pius X in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis in 1907 where he pointed out that Protestantism started the sequence where getting rid of the mediator role of the Chruch that Christ established results in the removal of God is next. This same pope points out how this follows in regard to philosophy in modern times that denies the ability to know essences, and thus God.

Pius X encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis: https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_19070908_pascendi-dominici-gregis.html

Ave Maria!

Mass: Tuesday 23rd Week of Ordinary Time – Wkdy
Readings:  – http://usccb.org/bible/readings/090721.cfm
1st: col 2:6-15
Resp: psa 145:1-2, 8-11
Gsp: luk 6:12-19

More on the Readings: http://dev.airmaria.com/r?m=1494

Also on Facebook: https://fb.watch/7TgYs7Whni/
and YouTube: https://youtu.be/Us67iFx7gL4

The post An Empty and Seductive Philosophy – Sep 07 – Homily – Fr Terrance first appeared on AirMaria.com.

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